Posts Tagged ‘metrics’

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Global Mobile Industry – First Half 2011 Assessment by Chetan Sharma

Thursday, July 7th, 2011

…In Q1 2011, US became the first major market to exceed the 50% mark in smartphone sales. The global figure stands at approximately 26%. Some operators expect 90% of their devices sales to be smartphones by the end of the year. In terms of the actual smartphone penetration, we expect the US market to eclipse the 50% mark in 2012.

China leads in the number of subs but US dominates in both total and data revenue. A number of emerging nations are now in top 10 – Brazil, India, Russia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Mexico while once dominant – Korea, UK, Italy, Germany have dropped off or slipped in rankings.

The number of mobile operators with more than $1B in data revenues will increase to 47 in 2011. This number was only at 13 in 2005.

Japan continues to be the leader in mobile data with NTT DoCoMo, KDDI, and Softbank Japan ahead of the pack in terms of mobile data revenue and data as a % of total ARPU. In 2011, it became the first major market to have more than 50% of its mobile revenue from data services. Next, Australia and the US have made good inroads in the last two years. In fact, if we look at the overall data revenue, US is much further ahead than any nation due to the size of the market.

While India has the highest subscriber growth rate in the world right now, the revenue generating opportunity remain down right anemic compared to other major markets with average dropping down to $3.50 in overall ARPU. Even with significant subscriber base, there is going to be a general lack of opportunity in the market for the next couple of years relative to other markets…

Read the rest of Chetan Sharma’s Global Mobile Industry – First Half 2011 Assessment at the website (just a summary) or by downloading the PDF (56pgs).

You can also catch up with Chetan Sharma and many others at the upcoming Mobile Future Forward conference.

 

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The Casualty of Symbian Bible Apps

Monday, May 16th, 2011

In a lot of respects, its rare to talk about Bible apps for one specific platform – there so many – the causality of Bible apps for the Symbian platform has been one of those questions that has gnawed at me a bit. Not so much even for the lack of applications, but the missed opportunities because of where the Symbian platform has been represented.

What is Symbian?

Symbian is a mobile operating system and platform that’s been used by Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Fujitsu, and LG for mobile phones. To date, there have been over 600 million devices shipped and sold with the Symbian operating system, making it one of the most prolific  in use.

Nokia has been quite adept at making Symbian fit its needs. It has pretty much been selling Symbian devices longer than people have given credence to there even being a category called smartphones. To that end, Symbian has been deployed with more carriers and in more world  regions than all but the most basic of Java handsets.

Unfortunately, it is also considered an older platform that while stable and optimized for mobile devices, falls quite far behind some of the newer entrants in respect to ease-of-use, developer tools, and ease of finding applications. And so Symbian recently befell Nokia’s reorganization efforts (first spun into an open source platform, and now to be greatly minimized  over the next years  to be replaced by Windows Phone).

Symbian and Bibles

By accident of niche, Biblical software usually is a fairly easy one to fill. Find a publisher that has the languages that you want to address, write the application to deliver it, and then make it available. The issue with Symbian is that its actually a pretty difficult platform to build on. Without getting too technical, its just plain to say that developers have needed to had a certain type of older technical knowledge (previously) or invest in toolsets (Qt, Java, etc.) which required a good amount of patience before progress.

When I moved to the Symbian platform in 2008, there wasn’t much to find for Bible apps. Laridian, Olive Tree, Symbian Bible, and Go-Bible were pretty much your only options. And for a while, this was just fine and covered most of the Symbian devices that were in existence. When Symbian went to a touch-based user interface (UI), things got a lot fragmented, and Symbian Bible pretty much became the only option (Best eBible came on the scene later). Which was good and not good – a free application, using Bibles formatted for the Palm Bible+ application, and had no support for newer translations. Newer platforms ended up with a very easy “in” for adoption, they had what people could read, and could find.

A Missed Opportunity…

In light of all of that history, its easy to say that Symbian (and the companies associated with that platform) might have missed an opportunity to take a platform that has already made considerable inroads even further. But, it had a good bit going against it, and so it is now in the position it is in.

But does that mean that all potential opportunity for this platform have been lost? I’d say no, if technical aptitude is seen as a gift that can benefit the Body. When I say technical aptitude, a platform (like Symbian, but all qualify here) benefits by such knowledge as developer tools, device interfaces, language mapping, usage analytics, etc. A person who is skilled in any of these areas would be a suitable team member for a larger project creating an application, service, or refining a digital faith experience. These persons have to be looked for in “not normal places” as their gift isn’t something you’d find in Exodus on the way to creating a mobile altar (Exodus 25-27).

There’s also the benefit of much of Symbian’s assets being made available in open forums (for example Forum Nokia), through some open source technologies (for example Qt), and through the continued ownership of Symbian devices (installed-based analysis by Vision Mobile). In effect, there’s a lot of folks out there who can still benefit from a Bible solution on this platform.

The Lesson for Other Mobile Platforms

It is easy for the market, and popular (loud) opinion to state where you should place your development resources. Certainly, making plans for mobile software you’ve got to take into account devices, services, and experiences (the entire frame of mobile) and what is currently and what will be in the years to come.

When it comes to religious software, you also have the opportunity to always tap into the installed base of current users. Many times, your frequent fans and users of digital faith items will not splurge on the latest devices or services, though they will want to receive some of the same experiences that newer devices offer. It is in this that the opportunity lies, and where its possible to not just make a product, but help drive older platforms to a friendlier sunset.

Currently, there are several mobile platforms that have come and gone (Epoc, PalmOS, Windows Mobile), and some that are pretty much on their last legs (Symbian, older versions of Android and iOS, RIM’s BB OS 6 and earlier). Developers looking to cut their teeth on a mobile platform to learn and to provide experiences should not forget these platforms. And at the same time, you should go into any project with a clear (and simple) goal and definitive timeline. You  will not be able to support those devices for very long when the official support has faded.

Lastly, when you are a platform that has cultured a community of content, but you are no longer able to support that platform, utilize the open code and support communities of Code.Google, Forum Nokia, SourceForge, GitHub, and others as places to put your code and release notes. There might be someone willing to take up the project, or at least help you migrate your project’s contents into a newer platform. For example, MMM participated in an effort to update the Rapier Bible application for Maemo 5 devices, fixing some linger bugs, but that also set the stage to develop (and later release into widespread testing) a Bible application written in Qt from the ground up called Katana. The rewritten application leans on lessons of the former, but has a much longer viable life because of decisions made early on to support certain content and programming hooks.

For Symbian, it may very well be the case that the sun is setting for it as a leading mobile platform. It is also the case that there are some years and various regions of users that still haven’t been served with digital faith content though having a platform capable of supporting it. Do keep that in mind as you consider your mobile strategies, and remember to study the past platforms for what is probably going to happen to many others in a nearer-than-you-can-expect future.

 

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The Layers of Mobile Life

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011

One of the points that we tried to get across in our BibleTech presentation is that there are several layers to mobile life that need to be understood if mobile ministry initiatives are going to meet with any success. Part of understanding those layers is indeed the relationship between mobile and faith. Another perspective of the layers of mobile life comes from the marketing and analytic fields.

For example, the results of a mobile life survey by TNS Global Marketing displays some of what could be understood from following, or not following trends in mobile.
screenshot of USA and Brazil mobile life comparison via Discover Mobile Life/TNS
See this in more detail along with other visualizations of the Mobile Life survey data from TNS’s Mobile Life website.

Just as important as these observations are, understanding mobile living also has to be considered from the viewpoint of what’s happening on the ground. There’s not as much data from those areas, so we are good to rely on reports such as Mobile Active’s How Small World News Trains Citizen Journalists and Captures Footage from Libya and the book Where Are You Africa?

Trends analysis (such as this one recently posted at Wireless Week) helps to get an idea of where to focus towards, and also where to look for those spaces where data is or can be best interpreted. You don’t base products or initiatives on those trends though. Trends – like prophetic versus in Scripture – need to be interpreted in light of the context in which they are given. And especially with some mobile trends’ data, you will want to get below the high-gloss level of trends to what’s actually happening as we talked about in the items above. That said, you can do a lot worse than Chetan Sharma‘s data – his work in this space is really well founded.

For mobile to be better utilized, this kind of research and data is needed. And from these efforts can sprout the kinds of insights that enable people to engage mobile not just as a layer to their lives, but as a wand to create better lives for themselves and others.

 

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BibleTech Presentation – Mobile Ministry: Definition, Contexts, And State Of The Body

Saturday, March 26th, 2011

QR CodeUnfortunately, funds and life have prevented MMM from being present for this year’s BibleTech Conference. There is always a lot of interaction, fellowship, and techie talk that happens, and I’m totally sure that by this point, I’d be recharging my mobile for the 2nd time in the day.

Mobile Ministry: Definition, Contexts, And State Of The Body happens to be a timely topic seeing that now many ministers and ministries are seeing that mobile is where they need to be and asking questions of where in ministry mobile fits. This talk recenters the context of mobile around the term mobile ministry, and then points to where mobile has been demonstrated in a ministry context.

In some respects, this presentation answers why MMM was started in the first place (to answer the question of what the Body is doing in mobile). And as such, gives the focuses to mobile ministry areas which might have been addressed, but maybe not as strongly because of the youth of this tool/channel.

View the Presetation (or scan/share the QR Code). The meat is in the notes (viewable by toggling the “slide view” (Ø) symbol at the bottom right of the screen). Per our usual BibleTech presentations, the information in the presentation is designed for consumption and mobile interaction.

(Abbreviated) Live Presentation via Qik

Blame a few folks for thinking that it was possible, and me for taking it further than my hardware and experiments usually go. But here’s an attempt to do this presentation via Qik. You can see the live presentation below, or visit http://qik.com/arjwright and then click on the video noted Live. If you have the Qik app, you should be able to interact with the video stream there.

This is being done over a Wi-Fi connection and using the lower-resolution front-camera of my Nokia N97. I’ll do what I can to keep this interactive, but I’m also really, really experimenting here. If it fails, BibleTech again gives some lessons learned and applied.

As for the rest of BibleTech, catch it on Twitter (#bibletech) and we can chat about what’s next in mobiles for Bible studies and other ministry endeavors along the way.

 

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Are You Where They Are?

Friday, March 18th, 2011

In a few recent conversations, it was talked about how there was a need to get up new websites, create billboards, and fill other media channels with content so that people can find avenues to Christ. Unfortunately, these were conversations within the Christian household. So when I asked these people tasked with filling these channels if they were addressing mobile, they not only didn’t have an answer, but pointed it to being a technical issue above all else.

Caarlo Longorio (@caaarlo)from the Wireless Industry Partnership (WIP) made an interesting and important observation via Twitter during this year’s SXSW Interactive gathering:

…the walls btw internet/web/mobile/video/whatever are imagined. the tech doesn’t matter, the users do…

You see all of these channels, all of these moments and opportunities, but are you where people are? To a few generations and economic classes, there’s a definite difference towards addressing TV/radio/web/mobile, and in others, that line doesn’t exist at all – its all content. Yes, the method, channels, devices, and everything else except the effect of the communication are seen as the same thing – the end result defines whether the method was successful, not whether the channel was populated with something.

So what happens when a report like the State of the Media 2011 from Pew Internet (@pew_internet) comes forward showing that more people are getting their news from online pipes (“sources”) than newspapers? And if that’s not all, of those using the Internet as their pipe most of them are doing news consumption via mobile devices. If you are in/near some conversations that I’ve been around, you hear things like, “how can we get there,” “what’s are social media strategy,” and “we don’t have the ability to care about those people, we’ll stick with our traditional customers.”

I recall the stories recorded in the Gospel narratives and beyond about Jesus and how his fame spread further than he travelled. And by at least once account, it wasn’t just aware of his fame traveling, but that people wanted him to come along with it. But, that wasn’t his place, he served a specific geographic area and embedded within the lives of others the ability to go to those areas where Jesus’ fame was (and where it would eventually be), and be the proof of redemption that Jesus was sent to be.

That Pew Internet report will be read and instead of asking “how can we teach people in our community how to share the Gospel message,” many ministries and people will go about trying to become or fill yet another channel. They will create mobile sites, language specific websites, close some offices and open others as funding and marketing resources will need to be shifted. And they will be surprised at the results – few people will come to Christ and stay, and others will reject Him because the message was devoid of a person being attached to it. 

Are you where people are? Or, are you just filling a pipe to where you’d hope they’d be?

 

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Infographic – The Internet in 2020

Thursday, February 17th, 2011

Internet_In_2010Around this time last year, a slide show looking at mobile trends for the next 10 years was released to wide acclaim and conversation. The amount of contribution and conversation around this effort spoke loudly to where many people see mobile, web, and other computer technologies going. We even posted our take on these trends, focusing on specific implementations to faith communities.

This year, we’ve got another info-graphic to poke your mind towards the Internet as it would look in 2020. From the folks at Intac, there’s a lot on here that’s not always easy to see in pictures. Here are some of the points noted:

More People Will Use the Internet
In 2010, there are 1.8 billion Internet users and a world population of 6.7 billion. In 2020, it is estimated that there will be five billion Internet users.

The Internet Will be More Geographically Dispersed
The estimated world population in 2009 was 6,767,805,208. The estimated number of Internet users on December 2000 was 360,985,492. The latest data shows the current number of Internet users at 1,802,330,457. The penetration of the Internet into the population is 26.6 percent. The growth of Internet users from 2000 to 2009 was 399.3 percent.

The Internet Will be a Network of Things, Not Computers
Today, the Internet has 575 million host computers. Expect billions of sensors on buildings and bridges to be connected to the Internet by 2020

Lots of things here, and much of it aligns with what we saw in last year’s report. What sticks out for you? Or, what doesn’t go far enough?

 

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Tomi Ahonen Mega-Post on Becoming the Next Millionaire Mogul in Mobile

Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

Tomi Ahonen has been quoted several times on this site as many of his insights have contributed to the understanding and application of mobile technology in the digital faith arena. Suffice to say, when he puts an idea down, it’s worth reading, rereading, and making steps to adjust.

Such is how I feel after having read his latest 20K+ word article about the mega-opportunity in mobile. Thankfully, Ahonen speaks in more than monetary terms. And given the insights he and several others in mobile share, the opportunity in mobile for great gains is just a matter of capitalizing on the opportunity. Here’s a snippet of the article:

MOBILE IS BIGGEST ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY (EVER)

Now, that is a massive statement, isn’t it? I mean, biggest? Ever? But before you jump to your next task on your to-do list, please consider just this fact. One industry on the planet has to be it. All others pretend, but factually, one of the thounsands of industries does truly have to be the biggest economic opportunity of any one time. Earlier on in the past century it was oil. Created the oil barons and billionaire oil sheikhs. Late in the century it was personal computers. Made Bill Gates the wealthiest man on the planet. At any one point in time there is one industry which is the best to be in. (and yes, even if biggest at one point in time, is not guaranteed to be ‘of all time’)

Today that is mobile. Mobile has become a Trillion dollar industry. Not the biggest industry on the planet, but one in a very rare category to pass the Big T of a Trillion. Television is not that big (has never passed half a Trillion dollars in annual revenues). Computers are not that big. Radio is not that big. The internet is not that big. Cinema is not that big. Newspapers is not a Trillion-dollar industry. Neither is air travel, credit cards, advertising, music, pharmaceuticals, hotels, videogames, the coffee industry, etc. Imagine if you were there to be one of the big ‘barons’ of one of those industries when they were in ‘hypergrowth’ stage, you’d have retired rich today with probably universities, airports or even cities named after you…

Read the rest of How You Became Next Mogul in Mobile (and a Millionaire) at Communities Dominate Brands. Also, you might want to add a cup of coffee or tea and a sandwich for this one (the reply from Martin Geddes, then Tomi’s reply).

For something a bit shorter, but packing a similar punch, check out this interview of Tomi Ahonen over at Mobile Zeigeist.

 

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